Topic: Problems Learning to Read

10-second review: Why do children from non-mainstream homes have difficulty learning to read? Reading is based on oral language. When that differs from the language in school, there will be a problem. “It is our thesis that oral language is directly linked to a child’s cognitive and emotional experience at school and thereby affects the learning to read experience.” Now what do we do about it?

Title: “Situational Differences in the Use of Language.” WS Hall and LF Guthrie. pp. 132-146. In Reader Meets Author/Bridging the Gap. Ed. JA Langer and MT Smith-Burke. IRA. 1982,

Summary: “Despite the efforts of federal and state agencies, countless educators, researchers and social workers, non-mainstream children in America continue to fail. Obviously, a different approach is called for, but exactly what that approach should be is unclear.”

Comment: According to this article, the mismatch between oral language at home and school is the essential problem with Latinos and African-American children learning to read. How can we overcome this problem? And how explain the Orientals, many of whom are quite successful? I suspect the problem of problem readers is more complex than simply a problem of oral language mismatch between home and school. But I agree. That mismatch is part of the problem. RayS.